Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Castle of Horror, the show dedicated
Speaker 1: to horror movies and awesomeness. This week we have a
Speaker 1: look at the nineteen ninety four horror film Wolf. This
Speaker 1: is episode four hundred and fifty seven. Bear in mind
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen today's movie, we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about it from the perspective of horror fans who
Speaker 1: have seen it. So warning spoilers ahead. From Denver, Colorado,
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jason Henderson, publisher at castle Bridge Media,
Speaker 1: home of the Castle of Horror anthology. With me from
Speaker 1: Austin is Tony Sabaggio, lead singer and bassis of the
Speaker 1: band Deserts of Mars and lead guitarist to the band
Speaker 1: Rise from Fires. Hello, Tony Howdy, also in Austin. Mister
Speaker 1: Drew Edwards is the writer creator of the long running
Speaker 1: underground comic Halloween Man, which you can find at Global Comics.
Speaker 1: He is a Best Writer Ringo nominee, Austin Chronicle Best
Speaker 1: of Austin Award winner and a member of the Penn
Speaker 1: America Fellowship. Say Hello, Drew.
Speaker 2: Also a man of taste and individuality or is that
Speaker 2: vulgarity in conformity? I can't decide that's nice.
Speaker 1: I like that, and it sounded like you were going
Speaker 1: to break into song, honestly, and finally, also in Denver color.
Speaker 1: Commentary from Julia Gusman of Gusman Immigration of Denver Say Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: Hello Okay.
Speaker 2: Wolf.
Speaker 1: Wolf is a nineteen ninety four American romantic horror film
Speaker 1: directed by Mike Nicholson starring Jack Nicholson. This is a
Speaker 1: heck of a cast, all right. I know I say
Speaker 1: that all the time, and sometimes it's less true than others.
Speaker 1: But this time it really is Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer,
Speaker 1: James Spader, Kate Nelligan, Richard Jenkins, Christopher Plummer, David Hyde Pierce.
Speaker 1: It was written by Jim Harrison and Wesley Strick and
Speaker 1: apparently an uncredited Elaine May. The music was composed by
Speaker 1: Enny O. Morriconi. And sometimes you can really hear it,
Speaker 1: you can really hear the morriconiness, and then sometimes it
Speaker 1: sounds like somebody else. So le's got our opening thoughts, Julia.
Speaker 1: I don't think we've started with you in a few weeks,
Speaker 1: which makes sense because we go around Robin. So let's go, Julia, Drew,
Speaker 1: Tony and then I'll go Julia. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: we watched this together in the movie theater back in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, so I don't know if you remembered
Speaker 1: it at all.
Speaker 3: I didn't really. I mean it felt familiar, but I
Speaker 3: didn't remember it. However, this is one of those films where,
Speaker 3: because I know when it came out, it's like so
Speaker 3: just frozen in a moment in time. We had just
Speaker 3: gotten married, we were in law school, and the day
Speaker 3: it comes out is the day that O. J. Simpson
Speaker 3: White Bronco Chase happens. So it's like so much just like, oh,
Speaker 3: I know exactly when this is. But no, I think
Speaker 3: this is a really fun movie. I love the cast.
Speaker 3: It's really interesting to see that, like you said, it's Marconi.
Speaker 3: It was supposed to be John Williams, but then he
Speaker 3: couldn't wait around because it got delayed. The movie got delay.
Speaker 3: There's so many different casting choices that were supposed to
Speaker 3: be somebody else, and so I've just this could have
Speaker 3: been a completely different film, depending on if the original
Speaker 3: people that they wanted had all been available. But anyway,
Speaker 3: but it turns out great. But of course Jack Nicholson
Speaker 3: was always I mean, he was the one who wanted
Speaker 3: to do it, so he was, and he's so perfect
Speaker 3: for this. He's such a wolf. So I think it's fun.
Speaker 3: I had a blast watching it.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Thank you Tony laid on me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is definitely I'm with you that it's kind
Speaker 4: of it's very much a time capsule. I don't think
Speaker 4: I caught it until later, just because of the timing
Speaker 4: of everything. I probably caught it a video I remember,
Speaker 4: maybe cable. Like, Yeah, I think it's got an excellent cast.
Speaker 4: I've seen a lot of like, got a lot of
Speaker 4: criticism evidently, but I don't know, it's pretty solid over
Speaker 4: all in my opinion. Excellent cast, great score. It's kind
Speaker 4: of trying to do something interesting. It's kind of a
Speaker 4: smaller film than like maybe We're American were Wolf in London.
Speaker 4: You know, it's but I I think it does some
Speaker 4: interesting things. And of course, you know, everybody who needs
Speaker 4: to chew up the scenery is chewing up the scenery
Speaker 4: in the best possible way, and you know the way
Speaker 4: that it's yet another film that shows like, hey, here's
Speaker 4: all the rich people acted. You know, this is a
Speaker 4: publishing company, but it's you know, sorry, Jack, this is
Speaker 4: the way things work in the biz kind of thing.
Speaker 4: And you know, who are the monsters?
Speaker 2: Really? Right?
Speaker 4: I yeah, I dug it. I'm glad we're covering it.
Speaker 1: It is a you know, we've been doing these, we've
Speaker 1: been doing werewolf movies, and this is probably going to
Speaker 1: be our last one for a while. And it was
Speaker 1: chosen by Drew, and I think it is a neat
Speaker 1: one to cap it off with. Drew, what are your
Speaker 1: opening thoughts?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, this is definitely the most a list
Speaker 2: of all the werewolf movies that we've covered. I mean,
Speaker 2: we covered some recent ones that were fairly big productions,
Speaker 2: but I don't think quite on the level of this.
Speaker 2: I really have come to like this movie a lot.
Speaker 2: I can't rememb remember what my thought. I did see
Speaker 2: it in the theater when it came out, because when
Speaker 2: I was a teenager, I basically saw every new horror
Speaker 2: and sci fi movie, like basically the moment they came out,
Speaker 2: but I can't really remember what my thoughts were at
Speaker 2: the time. I think though, that this is a movie.
Speaker 1: I know it.
Speaker 2: It has gotten criticism and continues to get criticism from
Speaker 2: some people, but for me, this is a movie that
Speaker 2: has aged like a fine wine. Like I think the
Speaker 2: more times I watch it, the better it gets, you know,
Speaker 2: I really think that it Honestly, if if it had
Speaker 2: been better received at the time, I think that this
Speaker 2: would be considered one of the pillars of the werewolf
Speaker 2: genre instead of that, you know, seene as sort of
Speaker 2: a kind of oddity of the nineties. But I think
Speaker 2: a lot of the choices that that are kind of
Speaker 2: batted around, you know, among fan circles, like the choice
Speaker 2: of doing a more minimal were wolf makeup, have aged
Speaker 2: really well. I think if they had done a bunch
Speaker 2: of cgi effects or done a really heavy makeup on
Speaker 2: Jack Nicholson, I think you would have lost with what
Speaker 2: is possibly the best special effect in the whole movie,
Speaker 2: which is Jack Nicholson's naturally wolfish face. But I think
Speaker 2: this is a really interesting take on the were wolf genre.
Speaker 2: I think it's it's kind of meat as a kind
Speaker 2: of sort of but not really a remake of The
Speaker 2: Wolf Man. And I'm happy to be talking about it.
Speaker 1: This This movie does age extremely well. I mean, I
Speaker 1: I this is this is my opening thought. You know,
Speaker 1: there's this is a movie that i'd kind of forgot existed,
Speaker 1: and it's it makes me aware that we are so
Speaker 1: affected by the reputation that a movie has. It's not
Speaker 1: like this has a bad reputation, but as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, people's opinion about it was sort of
Speaker 1: like why is it there? Like why what you know? Where?
Speaker 1: Why did it happen? What was the meaning of it?
Speaker 1: And so it got cast aside. But I don't feel
Speaker 1: like it hits any wrong notes that come to mind
Speaker 1: right now, And so, you know, it's just really strong.
Speaker 1: And then I'm such a sucker for anything that is
Speaker 1: deeply timestamped. And there's so much going on in the
Speaker 1: world of the nineteen nineties that's sort of on display
Speaker 1: around the edges of this movie. That's you know, I
Speaker 1: just I just really enjoyed it from beginning to end.
Speaker 1: It doesn't it doesn't wear out. It's welcome, all right,
Speaker 1: So let's start. You know, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the cast, but I think first we should put this
Speaker 1: in context. So, Drew, you were talking about how this
Speaker 1: movie is actually part of a system of nineties classic
Speaker 1: monster revivals that they were trends of the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: This is not the one we always think of but
Speaker 1: it is one that it's it is definitely a part.
Speaker 2: Well like if you look back to the Coppola Dracula,
Speaker 2: that did kick off a trend of getting a list directors,
Speaker 2: a list actors and big budgets to revisit classic monster characters.
Speaker 2: And there was the Kenneth Brouna Rankenstein with Robert de
Speaker 2: Niro as the monster, and then you had this, and
Speaker 2: then you also had Mary Riley, which was a take
Speaker 2: on Doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde with you know, Julia
Speaker 2: Jo and Julia Roberts. Yes, and you know, you could
Speaker 2: even kind of grandfather the remake of The Mummy in that,
Speaker 2: even though it would be the tail end. But you know,
Speaker 2: all of these, all of these movies, you know, they
Speaker 2: didn't they weren't created in a vacuum. It was created
Speaker 2: because one thing was successful, and so studios did what
Speaker 2: studios always do. They started looking at what IP they
Speaker 2: could mine. And of course the thing is about the
Speaker 2: classic monster characters, most of them are public domain. The
Speaker 2: Wolfman is not, which is why this is only a
Speaker 2: kind of sort of remake of the Wolfman. But it's
Speaker 2: or I would call it maybe a spiritual successor to
Speaker 2: the Wolfman. But you know, this movie, I think also
Speaker 2: even with people who are genre savvy, and because like
Speaker 2: when people are thinking about genre trends in the nineties,
Speaker 2: of course everybody the horror cliche is the teen slasher,
Speaker 2: the grace that was started by screen and that was
Speaker 2: a behemoth, I get it, but that was really more
Speaker 2: the tail end of the nineties, you know, like like horror,
Speaker 2: the horror genre, you know, was a lot more amorphous
Speaker 2: through like the earlier part of the decade, and these
Speaker 2: types of movies, these sort of you know, what we
Speaker 2: would probably call now call it elevated horror. But like,
Speaker 2: you know, these these movies that came out, you know,
Speaker 2: we're definitely part of a trend, and I think it's
Speaker 2: weird that no one really talks about it. And I
Speaker 2: think that also this movie, even among the few sort
Speaker 2: of you know times I have seen that talked about,
Speaker 2: this movie does kind of get left out of that
Speaker 2: as well, because all those other movies were gothic period pieces.
Speaker 2: In this movie is of course contemporary, although I would
Speaker 2: argue that it's contemporary in the same way The Wolfman,
Speaker 2: the original Wolfman was a contemporary nineteen forties movie, but
Speaker 2: also lived in this weird world where there's this, This
Speaker 2: lives in a fun house mirror version of the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2: And so I'm comfortable saying that this movie wouldn't exist
Speaker 2: without all those other movies, and that that that kind
Speaker 2: of answers your question of the how and the world
Speaker 2: why of this movie as to why it exists. That's
Speaker 2: why because studios saw that Dracula was successful, so they
Speaker 2: they started thinking, well, what other famous monsters of film
Speaker 2: land can we dust all.
Speaker 1: It's really I mean, first of all, I love what
Speaker 1: this thing looks like. I know that we just watched
Speaker 1: a nineties movie last week, so so this is sort
Speaker 1: of repeating my thought. But there's a look of nineties
Speaker 1: pictures that that I find just very interesting to look
Speaker 1: at the color here. This movie takes place ostensibly in
Speaker 1: New York City, although the office building they're in is
Speaker 1: the Bradbury Building, which is this really interesting building with
Speaker 1: these right these these iron gated elevators everywhere and the
Speaker 1: elevator operators, and it's.
Speaker 3: It is the nineties iron irons.
Speaker 1: Just yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, there's it's the night exactly
Speaker 1: as you said, Drew, it's the nineties, but kind of
Speaker 1: with a forties gloss in a sense. I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of times I felt, in fact that it was
Speaker 1: like The Big Sleep or something, because with especially with
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholson getting involved in this really rich guy's you know,
Speaker 1: kind of kind of wild daughter who lives in a little,
Speaker 1: a little garden cottage on this grand estate. I mean,
Speaker 1: in many ways it felt like a classic, you know,
Speaker 1: Sam Spade kind of movie, except for that Jack Nicholson
Speaker 1: is a book publisher turning into a werewolf. And but gosh,
Speaker 1: what a cool looking movie. I thought, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know. I wouldn't have had any awareness of
Speaker 1: this in the nineties because the picture is that we're
Speaker 1: looking at that world is gone now. So yes, so,
Speaker 1: by the way, and I'd love to get you guys
Speaker 1: thoughts on this. Do you find that you're poisoned by
Speaker 1: the reputations that a movie has. I mean, for instance,
Speaker 1: if somebody goes, I'm gonna I'm gonna see I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned The Big Squeak. I'm going to watch the
Speaker 1: Robert Mitchum remake of The Big Sleep from nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: somebody goes, oh, yeah, well, I remember that wasn't very popular.
Speaker 1: Does that cause you to already kind of have a
Speaker 1: well this movie doesn't count or some sort of minor
Speaker 1: vote against it, or are you affected by the reputations
Speaker 1: of films at all?
Speaker 4: I think that for me personally, it usually has led
Speaker 4: to me maybe not watching something and then being like
Speaker 4: I to be fair, I've seen more things that where
Speaker 4: I went, oh, I heard that wasn't so great, and
Speaker 4: then I watched it went or are people talking about
Speaker 4: at the time? Right, Yeah, this is like at the
Speaker 4: very least maybe like solid sometimes great. But you also
Speaker 4: have to think, like, you know, how many movies we
Speaker 4: enjoy were critically panned at the time. Yeah, click it,
Speaker 4: but like the thing was an example, like you just
Speaker 4: didn't do that well at like wild for whatever reason.
Speaker 4: So like I have found more often that somebody will go, no, no,
Speaker 4: you really should see that. Now. On that note, I
Speaker 4: don't think I've ever seen like ishtar right, And you know,
Speaker 4: but again people like, no, you should revisit that. I haven't,
Speaker 4: but like I I don't since I've discovered since we
Speaker 4: can stream more things and you can just pick up
Speaker 4: something you're not making, you're not you're not financially beholden
Speaker 4: to you know, five bucks rental. I find myself. I
Speaker 4: don't know if I'm just kind of more game for whatever,
Speaker 4: or just like I or just because I love movies.
Speaker 4: So for me, it doesn't necessarily color it like maybe
Speaker 4: maybe coming into it you'll be a little hesitant. But
Speaker 4: I've discovered so many things that I don't think I
Speaker 4: have that same reticence. It's more like, yeah, I guess
Speaker 4: I should, Like I've heard enough good things, now I
Speaker 4: should I should really see that you know, movie X,
Speaker 4: you name it. I mean there's there's dozens probably well,
Speaker 4: but yeah.
Speaker 1: I find you know, I find that I'm not I
Speaker 1: am not susceptible. And this is because I guess I've
Speaker 1: reached a certain age, right there was certainly an age
Speaker 1: where are somebody making a snarky comment about something about
Speaker 1: how a kind of movie is not cool or whatever.
Speaker 1: This has probably been true since my twenties that it
Speaker 1: just has no effect in me anymore, you know it.
Speaker 1: It's always me and the piece, and if the piece
Speaker 1: is good, then I it just doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 1: Like I could be at a party and go, oh,
Speaker 1: I watched this movie, and they go oh, those kind
Speaker 1: of movies are so stupid or some nonsense comment, and
Speaker 1: you go, well, no, I recommend you give this a shot.
Speaker 1: You just have to, just because I think people go
Speaker 1: through life and they just repeat stuff because like as
Speaker 1: though they're in a groove, as though they're just sort
Speaker 1: of saying things that have been handed out in little
Speaker 1: cards that you're going to say. And you know, but
Speaker 1: the great thing about the world we live in now
Speaker 1: you're right with Truby. It can farm something up to
Speaker 1: you and you go, huh okay, I'll check that out
Speaker 1: and it turns out, you know, it's a neat piece
Speaker 1: of work.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But also you know, I also think about traditionally
Speaker 4: liking horror movies and you know, weird B movies and stuff.
Speaker 4: Growing up that was often the case of like, how
Speaker 4: could you watch that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Whatever, so snarky comment. As an adult, it can make
Speaker 4: my own choices.
Speaker 1: And have I have a lot less Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, right.
Speaker 4: Okay, man?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 4: Whatever?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I live.
Speaker 4: Sorry, you don't enjoy stuff elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Right, No, I was just thinking I live for TV
Speaker 1: miniseries and melodramas and and nineties thrillers and all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff that people think doesn't really have a place
Speaker 1: in critical thinking, and it just doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 1: It has meaning to me, and that's and that's good enough. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we've been out in outer space. Let's uh,
Speaker 1: I will bring it back. Uh, let's talk about cast.
Speaker 1: So Jack Nicholson, here's what's weird true. This will this
Speaker 1: might intrigue you. I feel like this is one of
Speaker 1: the last movies where I saw Jack Nicholson play something
Speaker 1: kind of like a normal person, like because I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm not even sure what was going on after this,
Speaker 1: but I kind of find I.
Speaker 3: Think it's kind of the opposite. It's the last movie
Speaker 3: that he does it's sort of horror ish, whereas after
Speaker 3: this he only plays. I feel like he only plays, and.
Speaker 2: I think he started kind of evolving into almost spoofing
Speaker 2: his own persona.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're he's playing a he's playing a book editor.
Speaker 1: He's losing his hair, he's trying to But.
Speaker 2: A lot of that is well, okay, So one thing
Speaker 2: that I'm not going there where you want to go.
Speaker 4: I'm not going.
Speaker 2: Back on my opening thoughts, but this is the I
Speaker 2: will say. One flaw that this movie has is we
Speaker 2: never see Jack Nicholson as who he was before the
Speaker 2: wolf bite. You know this this thing opens on a
Speaker 2: beautiful shot of the full moon, and within two minutes,
Speaker 2: Jack Nicholson has been bitten by a wolf. So and
Speaker 2: it's a beautifully shot sequence. The cinematography is very dreamy.
Speaker 2: So I'm not saying that it shouldn't be in there,
Speaker 2: but we are only inferred. Like like the thing that
Speaker 2: they keep saying about Jack Nicholson's character, Oh you're a
Speaker 2: nice guy. Oh, you know, there's all this stuff to
Speaker 2: put forth the idea that that his character is the
Speaker 2: sort of put upon, you know, doormat of a guy.
Speaker 2: But we never really see that because you know, the
Speaker 2: next thing, we know, we're at a dinner party and
Speaker 2: Jack Nicholson's giving like a full on you know, Jack Nicholson,
Speaker 2: you know, I hate the nineties speech and and you
Speaker 2: know we have you know, with the people other party
Speaker 2: guests being all disgusted at his Jack Nicholson monologue, with
Speaker 2: it's full of Jack Nicholson type dialogue. And I mean
Speaker 2: there's still stuff that happens when we see you know,
Speaker 2: like we learned that his you know, his wife's having
Speaker 2: an affair and that she's having an affair with his protege.
Speaker 2: We see this stuff that his his life is kind
Speaker 2: of being you know, disassembled because perhaps he was a doormat.
Speaker 2: But we never see Jack Nicholson really play that. We
Speaker 2: only see Jack Nicholson the but the guy that's turning
Speaker 2: into a where and the way where wolf it works
Speaker 2: in this movie is it's not like, you know, he's
Speaker 2: only where a were wolf by night. You know, he's
Speaker 2: always wolfy, you know.
Speaker 3: With the full moon, it's just any well, it's.
Speaker 2: Like the it's like the fuller the moon gets the
Speaker 2: wolf f ere he gets.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's what I thought, Like the.
Speaker 2: The you know, it's it's the guy they come in
Speaker 2: in to explain the lore. It's like it's always it's
Speaker 2: always present. And you know we see that in his behavior.
Speaker 2: He's aggressive, his his and he his hair starts to
Speaker 2: come back in. He says snarky Jack Nicholson esque things,
Speaker 2: and you know, and look, I'm I'm you know, I
Speaker 2: when I plunk down my money to watch Jack Nicholson
Speaker 2: play a werewolf, I don't want to see Jack Nicholson
Speaker 2: necessarily playing against type. But I do think maybe five
Speaker 2: ten minutes of him playing a nerdy book editor probably
Speaker 2: would have helped the transition seem a little bit more extreme.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. And it's weird how how Nicholson
Speaker 1: he's so watchable that I don't care, right, Oh, he's great.
Speaker 1: How Nicholson is such a ball of affectations, you know,
Speaker 1: with the licking is his you know, his like doing
Speaker 1: the thing with his tongue, like he has a bad
Speaker 1: taste in his mouth, and the sort of sometimes bug
Speaker 1: eyed look in the well.
Speaker 2: There was ever if there was ever a guy that
Speaker 2: was perfectly cast as a as a middle aged where wolf,
Speaker 2: it was Jack Nicholson.
Speaker 1: Oh no, he's by the way, all that stuff I
Speaker 1: just said sounds like I don't like Jack Nicholson, But
Speaker 1: it's that's not it at all. I really I really
Speaker 1: enjoy him. But if you think of like Jack Nicholson
Speaker 1: before he was Jack Nicholson, you know, like I don't.
Speaker 2: Know Roger Roger Corman, Jack Nicholson, Roger Corman, Jack Nicholson.
Speaker 3: Can I tell you a bit from IMDb about about
Speaker 3: Jack Nicholson. So apparently he's allergic to spirit gum, and
Speaker 3: so they were he was. He told Rick Baker not
Speaker 3: to use the spirit gum. So he used something else.
Speaker 3: But then one day it seems like somebody accidentally, I
Speaker 3: guess it's bigger. I accidentally put spirit gum. And so
Speaker 3: the next day he came in like broke out in
Speaker 3: hives and he goes, he goes, Ricky, boy, you used
Speaker 3: spirit gum, didn't you. I'm just imagining about terrifying. Terrifying
Speaker 3: that would be to have Jack Nicholson like coming in
Speaker 3: looking like this is.
Speaker 1: But when I talk about him being this is the
Speaker 1: this is the thing, It's very difficult to bury Jack
Speaker 1: Nicholson under any role. And that was Stephen King's problem
Speaker 1: with him as Jack Horance is like he's not playing
Speaker 1: Jack Torrance. He's playing Jack Nicholson and that's a different guy.
Speaker 1: But but it's fine. But because we the audience benefit
Speaker 1: from it, you know.
Speaker 2: I think that's that's why you cast him in things
Speaker 2: that his persona works for, kind.
Speaker 3: Of when you wanted to do this for twelve years ago.
Speaker 2: And I think that this is a plumb role for him.
Speaker 2: I think that the you know, the idea of aging
Speaker 2: book editor turns into a werewolf. I think that that's
Speaker 2: that's a good Jack Nichol but it's a good it's
Speaker 2: a good Jack Nicholson roll. The same way. The Joker
Speaker 2: is like a role that's sort of tailor made for
Speaker 2: Jack Nicholson because it just even before you see him
Speaker 2: and the get up. You know, Jack Nicholson has that
Speaker 2: cheshire n Yeah.
Speaker 1: But anyway, when I said he plays a normal person,
Speaker 1: he's a book editor, he's put upon, he's suffering with
Speaker 1: middle age, all of that stuff, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: it was cool to see him being even close to
Speaker 1: approachable before he starts to turn into this this wolf
Speaker 1: and the I do want to get onto James Spader,
Speaker 1: but before we do that, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the many changes that his character goes through, because you're right,
Speaker 1: we don't really see him very very long before he
Speaker 1: gets bitten. But still the process takes time.
Speaker 3: There's still a transformation, Like like you said, his hair
Speaker 3: starts coming. He just something about his performance. He'd starts
Speaker 3: standing up straight, or he's more. He looks younger. I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's the makeup. Also, he looks younger
Speaker 3: as as he progresses, which I thought it was.
Speaker 2: They definitely went out of their way to present him
Speaker 2: as more handsome as he came on because like, yeah,
Speaker 2: his you know, they they they you know, put a
Speaker 2: put a piece on him to make his hair thicker.
Speaker 2: But I also think they probably did some subtle makeup
Speaker 2: to make his jawline more difference.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like I think they they spray tanded him
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 4: Maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like he and you know, his body language, like
Speaker 2: you said, like he starts presenting is more like athletic
Speaker 2: and more. I mean they have like a whole bit
Speaker 2: of business with him and his his you know, unfaithful
Speaker 2: life where his libido is sort of reawakened.
Speaker 3: Well that, yeah, he's got the night where he you know,
Speaker 3: he like he's always growling at the women when he
Speaker 3: when he's getting frisky with them, and so he wants
Speaker 3: he like rips off her room with his teeth and
Speaker 3: in front of the don't home of the church that
Speaker 3: they live next to. And and then the next day
Speaker 3: when he smells like he could tell that his wife
Speaker 3: is having sex with James Trader's character because of his
Speaker 3: acute sense of smells. So when she says she's going
Speaker 3: out of town, he goes up, immediately goes over to
Speaker 3: James Trader's house and and leaves up the stairs fully like,
Speaker 3: fully wolf style. That was fantastic. That was so cool.
Speaker 2: I love the way that they shot all the jumping
Speaker 2: effects because it's it's.
Speaker 3: Great sunt guys, great stuntwork.
Speaker 2: It's weirdly dream like like. It has this fanciful quality
Speaker 2: that you know like it it does feel supernatural. I don't.
Speaker 1: It's like, haven't you told me that you've had dreams
Speaker 1: of leaping upstairs?
Speaker 3: I always No, I always have dreams that I can
Speaker 3: fly around as I go down. Not usually well, some
Speaker 3: it's ups, but mostly it's down that I don't have
Speaker 3: to touch the stairs, only the rail, like, so I
Speaker 3: can just grab the rail and kind of swing around
Speaker 3: the stairs like you know how that guys do in
Speaker 3: the movies sometimes, And I don't know if they do
Speaker 3: this in real life, where they just jump into a convertible.
Speaker 3: I could do that, but with the stairs, like I
Speaker 3: don't have to touch the stairs, just go around.
Speaker 2: So do you wish you were a Jack Nicholson style
Speaker 2: were wolf so you could just jump the stairs?
Speaker 3: I'd rather be Michelle Feiffer's style were wolf.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean, being a werewolf in this movie
Speaker 2: doesn't actually seem that bad.
Speaker 1: I mean, it depends on how you interpret the end.
Speaker 3: Like a couple couple of questions. One is who are
Speaker 3: because there apparently is a theory out there in the
Speaker 3: in the world that Michelle Pfeiffer was already a wolf
Speaker 3: and that she's the one who bit him because we
Speaker 3: never see her actually get bitten or anything. So I
Speaker 3: think that's a really interesting idea. But the question is
Speaker 3: like who are these wolves? Because there's the two wolves,
Speaker 3: like the one he hits, and then there's another wolf
Speaker 3: standing with that wolf off to the side after he
Speaker 3: you know, after the wolf runs off, So it was like,
Speaker 3: who are these wolves? Why is is there like an
Speaker 3: epidemic of are they going to be like hundreds of
Speaker 3: wolves anyway? But but I loved the reading about the
Speaker 3: training of like how they how they work with the
Speaker 3: wolves and the birds and all the other and the horses.
Speaker 3: It's just so cool to see just kind of how
Speaker 3: because they are you know, yes, there were some animatronics,
Speaker 3: but they actually do have a real wolf German shepherd,
Speaker 3: you know, mixed, and then they have real the horses
Speaker 3: are you know, obviously trained, and there's some like birds
Speaker 3: that are trained anyway. It's just kind of neat too.
Speaker 1: We went to the wolf preserve. I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: that we've talked about this before, but I was shocked.
Speaker 1: I had no idea, you know, in my mind, I
Speaker 1: guess wolves were the size of coyotes. The see these
Speaker 1: these animals that are like the size of a Honda
Speaker 1: gold Wing. I was like Jesus Christ, like that thing
Speaker 1: is huge, huge, and I was I was just just
Speaker 1: blown away by that. Okay, now, James Spader, this is
Speaker 1: James Spader, Mark one still around and ste Pink Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he is. Boy, what a well written character. Good grief.
Speaker 1: I mean that just his ability this this character, so
Speaker 1: you know, kind of I'm I'm giving James Spader he's good,
Speaker 1: but I'm giving him credit for what the character is
Speaker 1: written as. But his just his ability to say any
Speaker 1: bullshit at any time that has no none, no veracity whatsoever. None.
Speaker 1: He will he will just say anything that he thinks
Speaker 1: will make him look good. And it doesn't even sound
Speaker 1: like he himself believes it. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: The whole movie he's talking about how he is will
Speaker 2: Randle Jack Nicholson character. Oh I'm your friend, I'm your friend,
Speaker 2: I love you. I'm doing this even though he is
Speaker 2: the guy that is fucking his life right and still literally.
Speaker 3: And him over at work stole his.
Speaker 2: Job, and like.
Speaker 1: Like I just I just feel I just feel terrible
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 3: If you want me to, I will walk in and resign.
Speaker 3: And so the first time he says that, you're like,
Speaker 3: say yes. He didn't say yes. But the second time
Speaker 3: he's like okay, He's like, okay, you got me. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to do that, but he does.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, my god.
Speaker 3: When he becomes a werewolf. He's just it's kind of
Speaker 3: like the rules of you know, various supernatural things will
Speaker 3: be like like like I don't know, I'm trying to
Speaker 3: think what the things are, but where you know, they'll
Speaker 3: say if you're a good person, it enhances your goodness,
Speaker 3: and if you're a bad person in this world, it's like,
Speaker 3: if you're an okay guy, then you're not going to
Speaker 3: be a really horrible like murderous wolf, but if you're
Speaker 3: a sleaze ball, you're gonna be a murderous wolf. And
Speaker 3: that's what he turns out to me. He's like immediately,
Speaker 3: well he's.
Speaker 2: Sort of the becomes like the embodiment of I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a whole lot about toxic masculinity going on in
Speaker 2: this movie. But he he kind of becomes the embodiment
Speaker 2: of it. Like he he is super rapey, and he
Speaker 2: is constantly objectifying Michelle Pfeiffer's character with every every you know,
Speaker 2: like I forget what he says to the security guard
Speaker 2: at the end, but oh, doesn't she look like the
Speaker 2: fuck of the century or something like that, you know,
Speaker 2: my business is pleasure or something.
Speaker 3: And his immedia instinct is even before he's a wolf,
Speaker 3: is to just invade your personal space if your woman like,
Speaker 3: he's just or of your guy too, I guess, but
Speaker 3: for sure if your woman like he's just standing so closer.
Speaker 2: Well, he already was a predator even becoming before becoming
Speaker 2: a were wolf. And one of the things I do
Speaker 2: find really interesting about this movie movies take on the
Speaker 2: whole were wolf thing is is, you know, being a
Speaker 2: predator the way an animal is predatory, which is to say,
Speaker 2: you know, you hunt for food, you hunt for protection,
Speaker 2: you protect your territory. That is not necessarily an evil thing,
Speaker 2: you know, that's just animals being animals, and you know,
Speaker 2: and in the case of Will Randall, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: actually good that he starts displaying some of you know,
Speaker 2: that characteristic because he needed he needed to defend his
Speaker 2: territory and and he does, in fact literally pe on
Speaker 2: James sad at one point.
Speaker 3: Again that's because he's like in his personal space.
Speaker 2: But if you are a predator the way James Spader
Speaker 2: is a predator, a predatory the way a predatory human
Speaker 2: is like, then you do kind of get like the
Speaker 2: classic you know, evil werewolf, Like he's you know, his
Speaker 2: is it's like you said, Julia, his negative traits are
Speaker 2: kind of enhanced, and you know, the entire time you're
Speaker 2: in the end of this movie, I don't think he
Speaker 2: blinks once. Like he's got these yellow contacts in and
Speaker 2: you know, his hair is he's getting more hairy, like would.
Speaker 1: Suck, like I bet, but they those contacts are horrible
Speaker 1: to wear.
Speaker 2: They look great, and I like the way they you know,
Speaker 2: just he's you know, we don't really see him as
Speaker 2: a full on werewolf that much, but he's so good.
Speaker 2: In the climax of this movie, he makes a really
Speaker 2: strong impression that you know, like he's he's pretty terrifying, honestly,
Speaker 2: you know, because you have Jack Nicholson kind of playing
Speaker 2: like the lawn Cheney Junior, like I'm cursed. I don't
Speaker 2: necessarily what this, and you know, James Spader is just like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm a were wolf. I guess, yeah, I guess I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go have to murder some folks.
Speaker 1: Although that is a weird shorthand from the movies. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever noticed this, but the movie
Speaker 1: will be about character a wh who runs into weird
Speaker 1: thing that makes them go through a big transformation. The
Speaker 1: whole movie is about that. The character of be before
Speaker 1: the end of the film will go through the same transformation,
Speaker 1: and we'll kind of pick it up instantly through the
Speaker 1: power of evil. Because you can have talking.
Speaker 3: About iron Man and Rody are you yes.
Speaker 1: Well not Roady. Rody is a good guy. But but I'm.
Speaker 3: Just saying that what happens, well yeah, but I'm saying like, also,
Speaker 3: Roady immediately knows.
Speaker 1: You're exactly right. Yes, that is a that is an
Speaker 1: interesting I'm not complaining. It is just a thing that
Speaker 1: that that always happen.
Speaker 2: Do wear wolf powers need an instruction manual though.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe it has to do in this case
Speaker 1: with maybe evil is a little easier like maybe James
Speaker 1: Spader just has a stronger personality. Who knows, But to
Speaker 1: get back.
Speaker 2: What he's saying, is it because he doesn't necessarily black
Speaker 2: out the way Jack Nicholson blacks out? That's true, you know,
Speaker 2: like when Jack Nicholson becomes a were wolf, he sort
Speaker 2: of dissociates.
Speaker 3: Yes, But the well, I don't know if we know that,
Speaker 3: if we know that James Spader remembers stuff after he's
Speaker 3: he seems to remember.
Speaker 2: He seems to be remember eating Will's wife.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the I just want to mention, by the way,
Speaker 1: other great Spader stuff. So Spader was in this movie
Speaker 1: called Bad Influence in nineteen ninety where he plays a
Speaker 1: put upon yuppie. It's kind of against type. He's a
Speaker 1: put upon yuppie who who's who's fiance kind of thinks
Speaker 1: he's a schmock and who doesn't get any respect. And
Speaker 1: he meets this greasy drifter made by Rob Lowe who
Speaker 1: comes in and says, you know, why don't you learn
Speaker 1: to live a little. And so they start going out
Speaker 1: together and finding the wild side and living a little
Speaker 1: and discovering a whole new world that existed. As I
Speaker 1: say it, I think there's a metaphor going on here.
Speaker 1: The movie wasn't acknowledging. And then but it turns out,
Speaker 1: I mean it's Rob Low.
Speaker 3: You don't need if you have a hot guy bringing
Speaker 3: another hot guy out into the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but but on on on the surface, it remained
Speaker 1: sort of chastily heterosexual. But anyway, uh, just a killer movie.
Speaker 2: A killer movie.
Speaker 1: By the way, Rob Low turns out to be dangerous,
Speaker 1: so so it doesn't. But it was. It was just
Speaker 1: so interesting.
Speaker 2: Is dangerous in real life?
Speaker 1: But it was. It was really it was really neat
Speaker 1: seeing that version of of James Spader where where he's
Speaker 1: not he's not the sleeves ball, he's the one sort
Speaker 1: of being led down and then sexualized and videotape good
Speaker 1: so good in that. And then now James I called
Speaker 1: that one James Pader Mark one. Now we have James
Speaker 1: Pader Mark two, the sixty something, and he is a
Speaker 1: totally different person. He's still the ship.
Speaker 3: But ye, Raymond Reddington is a scary assue guy, but
Speaker 3: he's not slimy.
Speaker 2: He's just like something again.
Speaker 4: Robert California from the Office is, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, that's the transitional guy, like transitional.
Speaker 4: Yes. By the way, when you're talking about I want
Speaker 4: to go back to when you're talking about how you know,
Speaker 4: how do you know how to do this and stuff?
Speaker 4: Aren't we to infer that since wolves come into the
Speaker 4: world and operate on instinct, that once you're what you're wearaboll,
Speaker 4: you also know these things by instinct. That's what I
Speaker 4: I there's a lot of training because it's your big
Speaker 4: wolves have instinct like animals, you know, swim and do
Speaker 4: all all the things that they do. They're taught, of course,
Speaker 4: you know, but but there's a lot of stuff that's instinct.
Speaker 4: And I always have thought that you learned by that's
Speaker 4: just the nature of your animal side knows these things. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and also forms your person. You're okay, I'll buy you absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, once Jack stops resisting, he's he's an exceptional werewolf
Speaker 2: like he he takes out James Spader pretty pretty handily.
Speaker 1: No, you're right, so let me ask a question. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: go ahead, I apologize.
Speaker 2: I just something I was thinking about when you're thinking
Speaker 2: about these actors in you know, going into the twenty
Speaker 2: first century, is just the proliferation of superhero films as
Speaker 2: you have the Joker, romancing Catwoman who is also the Loss,
Speaker 2: and they're they're going up against Ultron.
Speaker 1: It's a really good point. Good grief. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: really what a what a what a world? Yeah? Michelle
Speaker 1: Pfeiffer speaking of Catwoman who is also the Wasp, All right,
Speaker 1: why are we to so again? The character looks to
Speaker 1: me like a lift from The Big Sleep. She is
Speaker 1: the daughter who has secrets and and is kind of
Speaker 1: the black sheep of the family and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But it is is her interest in Jack Nicholson, Julia,
Speaker 1: I will let you speak for the gender because I'm lost.
Speaker 1: Is her interest in Jack Nicholson a fantasy of the screenwriter?
Speaker 1: Or is there some in story reason?
Speaker 3: For all know, there's so many story reasons. Number one,
Speaker 3: if in fact she was already a wolf, she's drawn
Speaker 3: to the wolf. Number two, she's interested. She's got daddy
Speaker 3: issues for sure, because of Christopher Christopher Plumber who just
Speaker 3: always is, you know, at odds with her and basically
Speaker 3: rejects her. So she definitely has daddy issues. She wants
Speaker 3: to piss off her dad, like you know, you can
Speaker 3: know that she seems that he didn't even like this guy.
Speaker 3: Well that's what another issue was. I'm saying she's got
Speaker 3: daddy issues. Plus she wants her dad.
Speaker 2: She even shades that because she says, you're inappropriate.
Speaker 3: Right, inappropriate, And she's probably drawn to like this the wounded,
Speaker 3: you know, like the whole save, save the save, because
Speaker 3: you know, women all all women everywhere. I'm kidding, No,
Speaker 3: many women like to save a guy, you know, like
Speaker 3: like to find a guy. That's that's why so many
Speaker 3: women end up with the bad boy or whatever, or
Speaker 3: they end up chasing him because they're like, I can,
Speaker 3: I can, like I can tame him, you know. So
Speaker 3: I think there's definitely that aspect. Well, so I think
Speaker 3: there's a lot about him that's attractive to her for sure.
Speaker 2: Also is Jack I mean I kind of already know
Speaker 2: the answer to this because I've had plenty of women
Speaker 2: tell me that Jack Nicholson is attractive. But is Jack
Speaker 2: Nicholson attractive?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this film is attractive and sometimes he's not,
Speaker 3: but then this one he definitely is because you can
Speaker 3: see that he's you know, he's got confidence, he's got
Speaker 3: you know, he's got a great smile, he's got very
Speaker 3: interesting like it's they're you know, they're not objectively attractive.
Speaker 3: His eyebrows aren't objectively attractive, but they're very interesting and
Speaker 3: kind of sexy, and you know, he just yeah, the
Speaker 3: confidence is super attractive.
Speaker 1: There you have it, folks, that's lean into lean into
Speaker 1: the confidence.
Speaker 3: Julia would do. Jack Nicholson, do.
Speaker 1: You know you remember they were also in the Witches
Speaker 1: of Eastick together, right, wasn't wasn't Michelle Pfeiffer one of
Speaker 1: one of the witches? Yeah? Wow, what a what a run? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Michelle Pfeiffer. Gosh, she was also in in To the Night.
Speaker 1: That is one of my favorites with her. We so
Speaker 1: Julia and I occupy a space where if one of
Speaker 1: us starts grease too, the other must sit down and
Speaker 1: watch the rest of the movie, like we cannot.
Speaker 3: All of the songs and say.
Speaker 1: Most absolutely I'm here for it and and yeah, so
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, we're for Greece to Loving Household.
Speaker 3: This is definitely just like how James Vader's steph This
Speaker 3: is Stephanie.
Speaker 1: They're both Yeah, Stephanie is Anony was definitely a better
Speaker 1: gang leader than Denny Zuko. I will I will stand
Speaker 1: I will stand by that. My favorite Michelle Pfeiffer is into.
Speaker 3: The night lady. Then then uh then, oh my god,
Speaker 3: John Channing, Olive John No Starcard Channing's great. I love you,
Speaker 3: John made Off.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, all right, but anyway, here's I mean,
Speaker 1: I gotta admit and so you're right, everything you said
Speaker 1: is absolutely true. I still feel like, considering all the
Speaker 1: scenery tewing going on with James Spader and Jack Nicholson,
Speaker 1: that Michelle Pfeiffer is playing a fairly grounded person, considering
Speaker 1: she's the rebel her character, she's the most reasonable one,
Speaker 1: you know, she's and she's the one who wants to
Speaker 1: keep an eye on Jack. She's the one who wants
Speaker 1: to keep him from dying of a heart attack. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, because she's she's apparently I can't remember what
Speaker 1: her job is, but she knows all this medical stuff.
Speaker 2: But she's a psychiatric nurse.
Speaker 3: Okay almost she says, he's almost a psych which I
Speaker 3: don't know if that means she's in school or what.
Speaker 3: So imagine if you will, in this part, either Mia Farrow,
Speaker 3: who is who was somebody that say Elsie she was
Speaker 3: Oh no, she was slated to play Charlotte. Which one's Kate.
Speaker 3: That makes sense she was gonna play Charlotte. Yeah, But
Speaker 3: so in Laura's part was they had asked Sharon Stone,
Speaker 3: and they had asked who's the other person? They both
Speaker 3: were asked, so imagine that.
Speaker 1: I mean, Sharon Stone is such an aggressive actor, like
Speaker 1: like every everything I've ever seen her in, she she
Speaker 1: comes on real hard and and like, I.
Speaker 2: Can see Sharon Stone in this part, but I think
Speaker 2: she would play it very differently. I cannot see a
Speaker 2: Net Benning really.
Speaker 3: In The American President.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would have to be real rewritten because I
Speaker 2: you know, like they're they're definitely playing up the age
Speaker 2: gap aspect of it, and I don't think and at Benning,
Speaker 2: I'm sure she is younger than Jack Nicholson, but she
Speaker 2: doesn't read as younger I guess the way Michelle Pfeiffer does.
Speaker 2: And you know that, you know that is definitely playing
Speaker 2: as far as like the midlife crisis of it all.
Speaker 2: You know, like he he leaves his wife or his
Speaker 2: wife I guess leaves him, and you know he ends
Speaker 2: up with a younger girlfriend, so like it.
Speaker 4: You know, you.
Speaker 2: Asked if there's a fantasy aspect of it. Jason, There's
Speaker 2: definitely there is that, right his wife.
Speaker 1: His wife sort of dunes him for a younger hudder man,
Speaker 1: but he immediately turns around and picks up a younger girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Although I'm going to shame myself because I screwed this up.
Speaker 1: I said that Anette Benning would have been too old
Speaker 1: for the part, and that is not true. Annette Benning
Speaker 1: and Michelle Pfeiffer the same age. So yeah, so I'm
Speaker 1: just I was just wrong, plumb wrong.
Speaker 3: And then the other one is Christopher Plumber as the dad.
Speaker 3: Marlon Brando had wanted that role, so that would interest
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: Oh that would have been im you know, I am
Speaker 1: glad that did not have I think Marlon Brando is wonderful,
Speaker 1: but that was.
Speaker 2: He really wonderful bye by this point though, like I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know, there's a lot of nineties Brando or
Speaker 2: he seems like he's kind of foam.
Speaker 1: I mean, the freshman is is not important, I mean,
Speaker 1: but it would have been. It would have been like,
Speaker 1: why is Brando in this?
Speaker 2: Like, I mean, it's a Mike It's a Mike Nichols movie,
Speaker 2: so maybe he would have, you know, not slept walk
Speaker 2: through it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but you don't want this character to actually
Speaker 1: draw the camera like this is that the Christopher Plumber
Speaker 1: character is there to be that, you know, and.
Speaker 2: I think by wolves, well, Christopher Plumber has you know,
Speaker 2: he's he seems like he is in a different movie.
Speaker 2: But I think that's the right choice for this character
Speaker 2: because I think in Christopher Plumber's character and the mindset
Speaker 2: of that character, he is the main character of this
Speaker 2: movie and his movie is about a He does not
Speaker 2: know that he is an a werewolf movie. He thinks
Speaker 2: he's in a movie about a captain of industry taking
Speaker 2: over a publishing house. And that is like and I
Speaker 2: think Marlon Brando would have I don't know, like the
Speaker 2: way Christopher Plumber has that very clear, concise, you know, delivery,
Speaker 2: Marlon Brando is much more of like a mumbly you know.
Speaker 2: I'm just I don't know. I also just the thought
Speaker 2: of Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando being in a scene
Speaker 2: together like as these two characters kind of gives me
Speaker 2: a headache for some reason.
Speaker 1: Well, I also would be terror. I would have this
Speaker 1: terrible fear that what would happen is somehow Brando would
Speaker 1: have writers, and the writers would say, we need we
Speaker 1: think we need some more scenes. How about if he's
Speaker 1: not such a bad guy, or how about if he
Speaker 1: gets to do more stuff and suddenly Brando, Brando's character
Speaker 1: of this publisher who is not the central figure, would
Speaker 1: be like taking over the picture.
Speaker 2: And that would be so Brando really would have made
Speaker 2: him the main character.
Speaker 1: I think somebody that big. It just would have felt lopsided.
Speaker 1: It would have felt really weird. But you know, what
Speaker 1: do I know?
Speaker 3: So you know, you make a decision. And then the
Speaker 3: other question. The other thing that was really funny was
Speaker 3: that when they were thinking about whether they wanted the
Speaker 3: character to be the dad or the brother, the christophermer
Speaker 3: character be that Mick Jagger was wanting to be the brother.
Speaker 3: So imagine instead she's playing off of Mick Jagger. I mean, anyway,
Speaker 3: just all these things, Like I say, it's just so
Speaker 3: interesting to think about a movie with the John Williams
Speaker 3: score and Mia Farrow is the wife and and that
Speaker 3: Benning as the as the you know, the love interest,
Speaker 3: and you know, make sure.
Speaker 1: The score.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you want to imagine Brando, remember Brando.
Speaker 5: And doctor Moreau and how that is the same thing.
Speaker 5: And then especially if you watch the documentary Lost Souls on,
Speaker 5: just how off the rails all of that went, Like
Speaker 5: I yeah, I don't know, man, I could have this
Speaker 5: would have been this would have definitely if it was
Speaker 5: a long that track, I think this would.
Speaker 1: Have been a yeah, he's a weird anchor.
Speaker 4: Like this like that era it was, it was, there
Speaker 4: was stuff going on. It's the same like Brando, but like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you watch that documentary, thank.
Speaker 1: You for bringing that documentary up to that's that is
Speaker 1: really something else. Can we talk about the symbolism of
Speaker 1: what like aanthropy means here? It's really neat because we
Speaker 1: talk all the time about how vampires mean different stuff
Speaker 1: in different movies, But here, I had never thought, Drew,
Speaker 1: you made this observation, this is lecanthropy as a symbol
Speaker 1: of the midlife crisis. Feel free anybody who wants to
Speaker 1: feel free to say more about it?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that's barely subtext. Like I feel like
Speaker 2: that's almost the text.
Speaker 1: That's the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he gets he gets bitten, his hair gets thicker,
Speaker 2: he gets better in the sack, He is better at
Speaker 2: his job. He defeats his younger rival, he takes out
Speaker 2: younger gang members, which definitely feels like a somewhat problematic
Speaker 2: baby boomer fantasy. He he he again gets a younger girlfriend,
Speaker 2: gets gets you know, you know, he this is, this
Speaker 2: is and I don't have a don't get me wrong,
Speaker 2: I don't have a problem within of this being explored
Speaker 2: in the movie. But this is definitely the power fantasy
Speaker 2: of an aging man.
Speaker 4: He's kind of only missing like a really souped up
Speaker 4: news movie.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, exactly, That's.
Speaker 4: Something that's the only thing he does. We don't see
Speaker 4: him get.
Speaker 3: I mean he did. He did crash his car into
Speaker 3: a Wolves movie. That's what it was, like a convertible
Speaker 3: like a maybe that's the next car that got to
Speaker 3: replace the rect car.
Speaker 2: Also, I mean, you know, not for nothing, but he
Speaker 2: does turn into a four legged wolf, which means he's
Speaker 2: kind of his own hot ride. So you know, I
Speaker 2: that is the movie. And you know, I again, you
Speaker 2: know that sounds like a criticism and I it's it's
Speaker 2: really not like because I I think, you know, good
Speaker 2: horror is where we can kind of play out something
Speaker 2: because you know, a real life mid life crisis is
Speaker 2: kind of unsavory, you know, like like but but you
Speaker 2: know this, you know, and plus who can really afford
Speaker 2: to have a midlife crisis if you're meaning me, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like I mean, you know, baby baby boomers could afford
Speaker 2: to have mid life crisis is but members of Generation
Speaker 2: X and millennials definitely cannot. But you know, so like
Speaker 2: seeing that kind of played out is like a supernatural
Speaker 2: thing to me. Is it's it's a safe space to
Speaker 2: kind of explore this stuff. And I actually think this
Speaker 2: may be the dumbest thing I've ever said that I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go ahead and say it. I think it's kind
Speaker 2: of gutsy of Jack Nicholson to spend like the because
Speaker 2: you know, this is Jack Nicholson coming off of you know,
Speaker 2: Batman and a few good Men and things like that.
Speaker 2: You know, he had he had several big hits under
Speaker 2: his hand, and he spends the first twenty minutes of
Speaker 2: this movie be kind of boldly showing off how bald
Speaker 2: he is.
Speaker 1: You know, thank you for mentioning a few good Men,
Speaker 1: because right now I was we were talking about all
Speaker 1: of his affectations earlier, and actually a few good Men.
Speaker 1: He that is a great role because he disappears into
Speaker 1: that role. You remember, it's Jack Nicholson, but it's got
Speaker 1: none of the Nicholson mannerisms that.
Speaker 2: Well, except when he goes full on you can't handle
Speaker 2: the truth, like yeah, but that's still like.
Speaker 3: He doesn't do like a you can you know, he
Speaker 3: doesn't do that.
Speaker 1: It's just he's just great. Yeah, but you know it's funny.
Speaker 1: The impression I get looking at people's people's reviews of
Speaker 1: this at the time is there, like I get it,
Speaker 1: I get the concept of office politics and emasculation and
Speaker 1: mid life crisis, but then why does it have to
Speaker 1: be like in other words, there were a lot of
Speaker 1: people who sort of ringing their hands, like, but couldn't
Speaker 1: we just have had Jack Nicholson in a drama about
Speaker 1: like a publishing house, like do we need the werewolf stuff?
Speaker 1: So yeah, and you know, ton monsters make it.
Speaker 4: Better, wouldn't you this?
Speaker 2: You know, a movie about Jack Nicholson having a regular
Speaker 2: midlife crisis would be painful and you would not be
Speaker 2: talking about it exact decades later. Because this is a
Speaker 2: where because this is a werewolf movie and a big
Speaker 2: budget Mike Nichols directed were wolf movie. That makes it weird,
Speaker 2: which makes it interesting. And that's why we're talking about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I I agree, I agree, And Tony talks
Speaker 1: all the time about the whole concept of the peanut,
Speaker 1: butter and chocolate. I mean, like, why not you know, what.
Speaker 4: Do you I mean, what do you want to go
Speaker 4: down this route? Then then what do you get? You
Speaker 4: get Jack Nicholson were Wolf along with the Michael Douglass
Speaker 4: Dracula falling down and versus falling down Dracula and jac
Speaker 4: Nicholson Wolf.
Speaker 1: You raised about falling down?
Speaker 4: Haven't you turned into a Dracula? And then it's Dracula
Speaker 4: falling down Dracula.
Speaker 2: I I think, you know, I think that there is
Speaker 2: a certain kind of like white collar baby boomer drama
Speaker 2: that I think critics really wanted in the nineties, and
Speaker 2: maybe that's what they wanted with this. But you know,
Speaker 2: to me, like you describe taking the werewolf stuff out
Speaker 2: of this movie, and I'm just like, that's not a
Speaker 2: movie I'm interested. And you know, look, I'm it's called
Speaker 2: Castle of Horror. I am a genre sure, but you know,
Speaker 2: like I've seen my fair share of Jack Nicholson movies
Speaker 2: that and I've never revisited them as many times as
Speaker 2: I've visited this, Like the bucket list. That's a baby
Speaker 2: boomer fantasy. Almost old body talks about that movie. If
Speaker 2: you google search wolf a bunch of think pieces come
Speaker 2: up about what a weird movie this is, And even
Speaker 2: the people that don't like it have to kind of
Speaker 2: begrudgingly admit that it's still in their minds an interesting failure,
Speaker 2: even if they think it's a failure. So I firmly,
Speaker 2: firmly disagree that they take, oh.
Speaker 1: No, And I never would suggest that we should do that,
Speaker 1: that that that that's what it should have been, but
Speaker 1: that that is the impression that I get when I
Speaker 1: see people going basically for some reason, I think maybe
Speaker 1: because of the excellent just all of the high power
Speaker 1: of all the people involved, the Nickels of it all,
Speaker 1: and Feiffer and Nicholson and you know, even Spader, and
Speaker 1: they're like, boy, this is really good, Like why is
Speaker 1: it a why is it a Wolfman movie? But I'm
Speaker 1: glad it is, I mean because it it gives us
Speaker 1: this this very interesting And you you said.
Speaker 2: I already hit the hit the nail on the head. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Francis fort Coppola made a Dracula movie and it made
Speaker 2: a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Right that was that was exactly why, that's why it happened.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you know we we we asked, we did
Speaker 4: ask this question to John and he was like, no,
Speaker 4: they stop at one, Like okay, we're well right, So
Speaker 4: the idea is why a monster? Well that's why we
Speaker 4: pitched I don't you know, like yeah again and we've
Speaker 4: had we do we need another mid life crisis movie?
Speaker 4: I don't know, Like I mean, I always interesting.
Speaker 3: Bottom line is that Jack Nicholson wanted to make a
Speaker 3: wolf movie. So they're like, well, who, We're not going
Speaker 3: to be there?
Speaker 4: You go yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean to answer your question, though, Tony, I always
Speaker 1: think we need more of everything. Give me go ahead,
Speaker 1: because it could be that Tony Savaggio is midlife crisis
Speaker 1: movie turns out to be one of the most wonderful
Speaker 1: things ever.
Speaker 2: Well, what are the what are the like? You know,
Speaker 2: if we take a step back and we just view
Speaker 2: this as a midlife crisis movie, what are the what
Speaker 2: are the like? We know what the pillars of the
Speaker 2: werewolf movie are? What are the pillars of the midlife
Speaker 2: crisis movie? Like Field of Dreams? Like what are what
Speaker 2: are we talking about here?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What are the great midlife crisis.
Speaker 1: What's the great another fantasy? Yeah, there's the one where
Speaker 1: Nicholson played the is it terms of Endearment? Where Nicholson
Speaker 1: plays the astronaut that has retired and he's falling in
Speaker 1: love with with Oh gosh, I feel terrible now I've seen.
Speaker 2: You're struggling to even remember it, but I bet you
Speaker 2: will remember Wolf.
Speaker 1: I will always remember Wolf, and I feel.
Speaker 3: Said falling Down.
Speaker 2: Falling Down is a midlife crisis movie, but it's a
Speaker 2: very different kind of like.
Speaker 1: Falling Down, I feel gets better every year because you
Speaker 1: keep going I keep going back to it and looking
Speaker 1: at and going that this is a movie that seduces
Speaker 1: you into forgetting who the bad guy is.
Speaker 3: You know, in the midlife In a real midlife crisis movie,
Speaker 3: the guy is the bad guy because he's going to
Speaker 3: leave his wife for a younger woman and get a
Speaker 3: stupid sports car, so he's gonna be so it's gonna
Speaker 3: The midlife crisis movies are actually these movies like you know,
Speaker 3: The First Wives Club or whatever, you know, where it's
Speaker 3: like the women are the hero or the heroes or
Speaker 3: the main the main characters, and then the men are
Speaker 3: the jerks.
Speaker 2: Well that's That's why I'm saying, by adding the werewolf
Speaker 2: element into this, you make the whole thing more palatable
Speaker 2: because suddenly it's fantastical.
Speaker 1: It's not well in the movie cheats by having Kate
Speaker 1: Nelligan have heard dellions with James Spader.
Speaker 2: Although also to just illustrate how terrible James Spader is.
Speaker 1: It is, but I mean, Kate Nelligan's character has has
Speaker 1: you know, she has she has a will, so you know.
Speaker 2: I'm going to take take a moment to say I
Speaker 2: think she does amazing work with a character that on
Speaker 2: the page probably wasn't very much because I actually find
Speaker 2: her fairly sympathetic in a in a character that on
Speaker 2: glance is not a very sympathetic character.
Speaker 1: Right, she's going through her own stuff.
Speaker 2: I think she does a really good job playing this character.
Speaker 3: I think she does, but I didn't find her sympathetic.
Speaker 3: But I agree with you that she does a great
Speaker 3: job playing the characters.
Speaker 1: She's really good in Eye the Needle. By the way,
Speaker 1: if I now there's a movie I haven't watched in
Speaker 1: like thirty years, but or longer, I don't think I've
Speaker 1: seen Eyland Needle since like it was on HBO back
Speaker 1: in the eighties, but I remember her being good, you know,
Speaker 1: and she's certainly good in Dracula, by the way, the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine Dracula. All right, so let's talk about
Speaker 1: the ending real quick, and then I want.
Speaker 2: To wear a wolf smack down.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, the finale, the big finale is a monster fight,
Speaker 1: which is sweet. But I want to know because you
Speaker 1: can talk about that all you want and so, but
Speaker 1: I also I want to understand what is happening at
Speaker 1: the end, Like, is this like Dracula and Susan Saint
Speaker 1: James at the end of Love at First Bite? Are
Speaker 1: they running off together to be supernatural creatures together? Is
Speaker 1: he going to be able to turn back into Jack
Speaker 1: Nicholson or is he forever a wolf in the park now?
Speaker 1: Like what what's he's forgetting?
Speaker 4: Stupid?
Speaker 2: But I don't think that that's I think that's meant
Speaker 2: to be open ended the way the movie, like, you know,
Speaker 2: because there's certainly an interpretation where you could say, well,
Speaker 2: the next morning he wakes up and he's Jack Nicholson again,
Speaker 2: but he's going to go through this metamorphosis all over
Speaker 2: again through the next the next moon cycle, which is
Speaker 2: fair but also you know maybe maybe, Yeah, him and
Speaker 2: Michelle Pfeiffer are going to go off and be demon
Speaker 2: Will together and you know that's their happy ending. But
Speaker 2: I mean his life is as Will Randall is over
Speaker 2: no matter what, because you know, he's been falsely accused
Speaker 2: of his wife's murder and Michelle Pfeiffer made it look
Speaker 2: like he fled the country.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I don't understand why she didn't, Well she
Speaker 3: didn't accept responsibility for shooting James Spader and go he
Speaker 3: came in here and he was trying to rape me
Speaker 3: and kill me, and he confessed that he killed this
Speaker 3: other woman whatever, you know, like why not then there
Speaker 3: would have it would be fine for well.
Speaker 4: Especially she's rich, she can get away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, she did her house, in her own house,
Speaker 3: and he clearly was trying to be rapy. Everybody knew
Speaker 3: he was like super predatory.
Speaker 4: Well, no matter what, she's well totally get away, like
Speaker 4: like it's self defense from the start.
Speaker 3: But there's I was surprised that she didn't do that.
Speaker 2: Even even a cop saw him acting like, you know,
Speaker 2: him acting.
Speaker 1: Super Yeah, I believe he was a bad guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like he he was, you know, acting just off
Speaker 2: his rocker, So you know, I I, you're right, you can.
Speaker 2: I can't think of an argument around that, except maybe
Speaker 2: she doesn't want to out Jack Nicholson is a werewolf.
Speaker 1: I don't know, she wouldn't have to.
Speaker 3: She wouldn't have to because it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't want out out herself as a were wolf.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't think she out to anybody's WORLF. I think
Speaker 3: all she does is say this, you know, this jerk
Speaker 3: showed up at my house because she'd already told the
Speaker 3: security guard not to let anybody in, and so she's
Speaker 3: like she could be like, you know, this guy was
Speaker 3: hitting on me at the police station. He stocked me.
Speaker 3: I told my security guards not to let him, and
Speaker 3: he came here, killed my security guard, and the yeah,
Speaker 3: tried to write me and so I shot him. Period
Speaker 3: that there's nothing about about where it has to be
Speaker 3: mentioned about anyway, I mean unless unless he's still in word.
Speaker 3: I don't know if when she shoots him a few
Speaker 3: reverts back to human or not.
Speaker 2: If you still they show it, they show.
Speaker 3: There there was no you never have to mention anyth
Speaker 3: about where worlds then.
Speaker 1: Well I guess so, Yeah, lots of questions left behind
Speaker 1: as they wrap it up pretty quickly because it is
Speaker 1: almost again almost identical to the end of Love It
Speaker 1: First Bite, where they go off together words.
Speaker 2: I never thought I would love it First Fight.
Speaker 1: Man, that well, that movie was super important to me.
Speaker 1: When I know, I know, yes, can you put in
Speaker 1: the one reading of it.
Speaker 4: The internet?
Speaker 3: I'm going to say, I know, sweet, you love it
Speaker 3: first by.
Speaker 2: I studied at the altar of the Master like Jack Nicholson.
Speaker 1: I can. I can live with it because I still
Speaker 1: love Love It First Bite.
Speaker 2: I am a look. Plenty of the movies that I
Speaker 2: love are crap, but you know.
Speaker 4: There's not to Jason. I just love play of the movies.
Speaker 4: I like crap, so you can crap movie. It's just, buddy.
Speaker 4: I don't mean to rag on you. It's just.
Speaker 2: I said what I said. What I said.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to do a whole nother episode again.
Speaker 1: I love it First Bite.
Speaker 2: Just I think my baby's sick.
Speaker 4: That weekend, whatever weekend is, yeah, exactly, we move it's
Speaker 4: a Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Oh no, that's definitely not all right.
Speaker 1: So that's the ending, which we're.
Speaker 2: We need to talk about. Two things awesome were Wolf Fight,
Speaker 2: where the werewolves use tools. The were wolves in this
Speaker 2: movie are smart enough to pick up brakes, to pick
Speaker 2: up hedge clippers and stab motherfuckers with it. They're smart
Speaker 2: enough to run people over with their cars. That is
Speaker 2: pretty fucking unique, like were wolves don't normally do shit
Speaker 2: like that. And also Rick Baker, Academy Award winning werewolf Master,
Speaker 2: the guy that if you went a awesome were wolf,
Speaker 2: the guy that has done three very different werewolves. I
Speaker 2: might add, because you have the four legged hell hound
Speaker 2: from American Werewolf in London, you have you know, the
Speaker 2: very minimal were wolf makeup in this and then you
Speaker 2: have the full on Jack Pierce throwback in the Joe
Speaker 2: Johnston Wolfman. Like Rick Baker is the motherfucking werewolf Master.
Speaker 2: And for this movie, for the biting stuff that they
Speaker 2: did where Jack Nicholson basically looks like he unhinges his jaw,
Speaker 2: he built a fully animatronic Jack Nicholson were wolf head
Speaker 2: and if you can, you can google this and find
Speaker 2: pictures of it online. And that thing is fucking sweet.
Speaker 3: Like like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Speaker 2: Two things exactly like that. That is like, you know,
Speaker 2: if anybody wants to ask why this movie has a
Speaker 2: reason to exist. It's so that Rick Baker had to
Speaker 2: make an animatronic Jack Nicholson were wolf head like.
Speaker 3: He also had this like little device that made Jack
Speaker 3: Nicholson's ears wiggle, which I thought was awesome.
Speaker 2: So that, Yeah, I think that you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of people rag on the were wolf makeup in this movie,
Speaker 2: and I think that's kind of unfair because you know, like, look,
Speaker 2: I have my preferences on what a were wolf should
Speaker 2: look like, like we all do, and some people full
Speaker 2: like the full upright wolf like from the Howling movies,
Speaker 2: and some people like the the you know, traditional wolfman. Look,
Speaker 2: this one kind of went for a throwback to where
Speaker 2: Wolf of London look for it, and I think that
Speaker 2: was the right choice because you have guys like James Spader,
Speaker 2: and you have guys like Jack Nicholson, and they have
Speaker 2: these great faces. I don't think you cover those up.
Speaker 2: I think you enhance they're already sort of loopine features.
Speaker 2: I think that's the right choice for this movie. It
Speaker 2: might not be the right choice for every were wolf movie,
Speaker 2: but it's the right choice for this one.
Speaker 3: I love that. I wanted to add to your list
Speaker 3: of things that the smart that they're so smart that
Speaker 3: they do. We didn't talk about the fact that he
Speaker 3: gets that that Jack Nicholson gets that that that pendant
Speaker 3: thing that like the weird silver wolfman, that the midllion
Speaker 3: that makes him be able to fight through the transformation.
Speaker 3: So he doesn't go killing anybody. But he's so smart
Speaker 3: that he doesn't take it off except for when he
Speaker 3: needs to save his love from rape the other world,
Speaker 3: and then he tears it off because he's like, okay,
Speaker 3: I need to transform. So he's like smart enough that
Speaker 3: he knows. I guess he's still kind of human at
Speaker 3: that point. That's why he's That's why he's able to
Speaker 3: But the fact is that he doesn't hurt her once
Speaker 3: he's turned either.
Speaker 2: You know, he's like, well, because he's not a bad
Speaker 2: man ultimately, and I think that that's again, I think
Speaker 2: they'll were wolf Laura in This is cool. You know,
Speaker 2: like that if you were if you were not a
Speaker 2: bad man, you're not going to be a bad werewolf.
Speaker 2: And you know, and because you have James Spader's character,
Speaker 2: you can kind of have your cake and eat it too,
Speaker 2: you know, because like the only people Jack Nicholson is
Speaker 2: really aggressive to is people who are aggressive. You know,
Speaker 2: he's aggressive to people that try to mug him. And
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess maybe one of those muggers might
Speaker 2: be turning into a were wolf sometime soon, because we
Speaker 2: we it doesn't sound like it doesn't sound like all
Speaker 2: of them die.
Speaker 4: I thought he's just ripped through. I know, you ripped
Speaker 4: through anybody who didn't escape was how I read it.
Speaker 2: But he at least, you know, the implication because we
Speaker 2: later see one of the mugger's moms at the at
Speaker 2: the at the police. So I'm wondering if Fingers appears.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I like, maybe he's a were wolf now I.
Speaker 4: Found go ahead, Sorry, no, I'm done.
Speaker 2: I'm done.
Speaker 4: I found the character of doctor v J kind of
Speaker 4: interesting too, because he kind of fulfills. He starts off
Speaker 4: as fulfilling and kind of uh.
Speaker 3: You know exposition Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, uh you know more Van Helsing kind of roll
Speaker 4: at first, but by the end of it, he almost
Speaker 4: wants to be a rin Field, you know, like, hey,
Speaker 4: can you look, I'm olding you turn me, you know,
Speaker 4: and and so that that you can imagine though, like
Speaker 4: if the van Helsing in a movie was like, hey,
Speaker 4: so look, I'm fighting vampires as well, but like that power.
Speaker 4: I think I thought that that interaction was really fascinating
Speaker 4: because not only does he's.
Speaker 2: A great scene, but but like you know, like I
Speaker 2: love his his I love his line about how damnation
Speaker 2: doesn't exist in his yeah system, Like you know, I
Speaker 2: think there's some interesting stuff going on there. But aside
Speaker 2: from that, you know, it's you know, like he also
Speaker 2: you know, it's a scene where they're talking about were
Speaker 2: wolf mythology, but they never actually use the word were wolf, right,
Speaker 2: you know, which I don't think it's ever actually said
Speaker 2: in this movie at all.
Speaker 1: That actor, by the way, his name is own Puri.
Speaker 1: He is forty four years old. In that scene. He
Speaker 1: is under heavy makeup, so he's supposed to look a
Speaker 1: lot older. He has died. Unfortunately, he died in twenty seven.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I said, Rick Baker the Man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he died in twenty seventeen at the age of sixty six,
Speaker 1: so he died way too early. Yeah, but he was pentastic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 4: I just really liked that interaction. I thought it it's
Speaker 4: the way they they had There's a bunch of different
Speaker 4: ways you can play that mythology and that discovery, and
Speaker 4: I think it worked really well in this movie. And
Speaker 4: again passing on the amulet, which is like it's a
Speaker 4: different kind of thing in a werewolf movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's it's kind of combining the idea of
Speaker 2: like a silver weapon with also the idea of you know,
Speaker 2: the you know, like the pentagram of the wolf Man.
Speaker 2: And again, I think this movie's particular hinge on you know, everybody.
Speaker 2: You know, I've read a lot of reviews of this
Speaker 2: movie where they call it a traditionalist were wolf movie,
Speaker 2: and I think they're looking at the makeup design and
Speaker 2: seeing that the makeup designs is sort of like a
Speaker 2: deliberate throwback to like the nineteen thirties and not really
Speaker 2: looking at what's going on with the actual, you know,
Speaker 2: occult mythology that they're creating, because it's it's not really
Speaker 2: a traditional take on because the traditional werewolf mythology is
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's sort of you know, dealing with
Speaker 2: like pent up darkness inside your know. Like the thing
Speaker 2: about the wolf Man is he's both hero and villain
Speaker 2: in his own movie, and that's really unique.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't, I mean, does.
Speaker 2: Anybody watching this movie ever, really thinking that Jack Nicholson's
Speaker 2: character is is actually going to be a bad you know,
Speaker 2: a bad wolf.
Speaker 1: No, And the screenwriter, as far as I know, his
Speaker 1: main complaint was just that the I'm not really sure
Speaker 1: exactly the initial screenwriter objected to changes made to a script,
Speaker 1: although that's sort of a common complaint. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: lots lots of lots of screenwriters are not happy with
Speaker 1: what happens to a script that.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, we experienced the whole comic of that,
Speaker 4: so sure, sure, for sure all the time, I'm still angry.
Speaker 4: So yes, I get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, but you're left with the with
Speaker 1: the version that you have, so we don't. We don't
Speaker 1: really know like how much wilder, how much more violent,
Speaker 1: how much sexier the original would have been. We just
Speaker 1: we just don't know. Although actually, probably somewhere out there
Speaker 1: you can probably find the original script and find out.
Speaker 1: All right, cool, let's get our final thoughts and then
Speaker 1: come around for for endorsements. I'm I'm super excited because
Speaker 1: I have I have one, you know, just as a
Speaker 1: as an advanced warning that is related to James Spader
Speaker 1: and to Tony So okay, but but all right, final
Speaker 1: thoughts it was Julia Tony Drew and then I'll go Julia,
Speaker 1: I mean this has been fun, right, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it's been a really interesting conversation. I can't
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't believe how much we were able to, like,
Speaker 3: how many different topics we were able to hit in
Speaker 3: this time, given that it's not, you know, the deepest
Speaker 3: of movies. But it's really interesting and you know, I
Speaker 3: just I think the cast for me just does it all.
Speaker 3: It's like such a great cast. But but there's a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot of fun things about it. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I definitely enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Excellent, Thank you very much, Tony. What about you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I really liked the discussion as well, And I
Speaker 4: think given time, I think this is perhaps and a
Speaker 4: more interesting movie than I thought about it. I thought
Speaker 4: it was when I when I saw it whenever, I
Speaker 4: don't remember the year, but definitely I was do their
Speaker 4: own video ka well, so I think revisiting it is
Speaker 4: really interesting. By the way, on a tangent, we were
Speaker 4: talking about were wolf fighting and monster fighting. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: surprised that other than like Kaiju Big Battle, no wrestling
Speaker 4: company has said, you know, what what if we got
Speaker 4: there all what if we got all the monsters, like
Speaker 4: all these monsters to wrestle, Like, I've never seen that
Speaker 4: Kaiji Big Battle does you know, kind of cool, fun, silly, interesting,
Speaker 4: you know, Kaiji type stuff. But other than the ne
Speaker 4: E s the Amazon, which is the gill Man, I
Speaker 4: don't think I've ever seen a wrestling company that there
Speaker 4: should be a wrestling company now that like when you
Speaker 4: when you mentioned I was just picturing, like why isn't
Speaker 4: there a gill Man versus Werewolf versus Frankenstein's Monster, so like.
Speaker 3: John Cena is like Godzilla's.
Speaker 4: More more like just traditional monsters, like because yeah, because
Speaker 4: we are when we already have the like I said,
Speaker 4: like Haiji Big Battle wrestling company, which is interesting, but
Speaker 4: like I've never seen that. I've never seen that seems
Speaker 4: like a gimmick that's just left out there.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Uh Anyway, that's where my mind goes, so sorry to
Speaker 4: apologies to the listeners. That's where I'm at. But but yes,
Speaker 4: as far as this goes, like I think you know,
Speaker 4: it's a great cast. It is a time capsule, you know,
Speaker 4: when we're talking about James Spader the kind of Rapie Wolf.
Speaker 4: I will say that as an adult watching this, uh
Speaker 4: it with kind of a more mature mindset, Like that
Speaker 4: scene is really harrowing and real in ways that if
Speaker 4: you know, like how that that there's something about that
Speaker 4: and the way it's shot and the way he like
Speaker 4: all that's happening, was like, well, this is I don't know,
Speaker 4: it feels more real than other parts of the movie
Speaker 4: for sure when he her like her of that stuff
Speaker 4: just whoa where Like I didn't. I definitely didn't think
Speaker 4: of how that was when I first saw it, But
Speaker 4: seeing it this time, like there's definitely a hey, uh
Speaker 4: you know, possible trigger warning on that, like that is
Speaker 4: that was more intense than I remembered it and kind
Speaker 4: of yeah, I was. I was struck by that. But overall,
Speaker 4: you know, the in the Werewolf as you know, midlife
Speaker 4: crisis kind of thing. I mean, that's as much as
Speaker 4: a lot of the stuff is you know, a time capsule.
Speaker 4: That's a you know, choosing and choosing to do that
Speaker 4: with a and well having the having you know Jack
Speaker 4: Nicholson say I want to do this movie, you know,
Speaker 4: and waiting in that time period. Is that what you
Speaker 4: twelve years.
Speaker 3: You read twelve years, and.
Speaker 4: That's that's a lot of kind of off and on,
Speaker 4: and that sadly happens a lot in the industry. But uh,
Speaker 4: you know, convincing people to get it made and then
Speaker 4: go in this direction, uh in that that alone is
Speaker 4: kind of fascinating. So I think it's cool to go
Speaker 4: back to it, and it made for good discussions.
Speaker 1: So this is this is pretty awesome, excellent, ex true.
Speaker 1: What about you?
Speaker 2: The director of the Graduate made a werewolf movie starring
Speaker 2: Jack Torrence and they dig it, you know, like that's
Speaker 2: that's really the best summary of it. Like, I think
Speaker 2: that this is a far better movie than and honestly,
Speaker 2: I think it's more you know, warts and all, like
Speaker 2: it's it's it's maybe not exactly it's I think it
Speaker 2: is a more interesting film than the couple of Dracula movie.
Speaker 2: It might not be quite as as good in the
Speaker 2: traditional sense, but the weirdness of this movie makes it
Speaker 2: more appealing to me. I think like it and I
Speaker 2: I I like that. I don't it's it's it's kind
Speaker 2: of hard to nail that down, but like it's it's
Speaker 2: like this much a list talent to make a were
Speaker 2: wolf movie is like, I don't even think we've seen
Speaker 2: anything like that since the nineties, Like they just don't really.
Speaker 2: I guess the closest thing would be, you know, the
Speaker 2: Tom Cruise Mummy movie from a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: but that was still pretty schlocky, Like this is played
Speaker 2: really straight and that's yes.
Speaker 1: Well, and it looks like a like a like an
Speaker 1: a studio, you know, it looks it has the lighting
Speaker 1: and color and verve of like a rom com of
Speaker 1: this era.
Speaker 3: You know, it's either way a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to tell you. Drew is twenty seventeen, so.
Speaker 1: So nearly ten.
Speaker 2: In other words, yeah, well, well I am I am
Speaker 2: aging like this movie like a fine, I just skip
Speaker 2: better with.
Speaker 3: Age and I went through I was going through all
Speaker 3: the you know, imagine this movie with this cast and
Speaker 3: this whatever. Also, they had Stanley Kubrick to director. We're
Speaker 3: talking about like the director of the Graduates, Like, imagine
Speaker 3: the director of the Shining.
Speaker 2: Been very different.
Speaker 1: It would have been quite differents.
Speaker 2: It probably still would have been cool though.
Speaker 1: Like it'd be cool. Yeah, but boy, that's yet another
Speaker 1: thing that would have just overwhelmed this movie. If if
Speaker 1: you had Kubrick doing his Kubrick thing like this, this
Speaker 1: would have it would have been a much moodier piece
Speaker 1: for sure, but boy, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, also would have been a lot more psychedelic.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you know, I can just imagine the tone.
Speaker 3: Pod.
Speaker 1: Let's get our endorsements. Uh, Julia, we're starting with you.
Speaker 1: What do you have to share with us that you've
Speaker 1: been watching, listening to whatever? We are at your mercy?
Speaker 1: What do you got?
Speaker 3: I mean, still working record. Severn's season finale was incredible,
Speaker 3: loved it so much. And I'm having a good time
Speaker 3: watching Daredevil. I think I think I have anything new.
Speaker 3: That's pretty much.
Speaker 2: I love the way you you said I'm having a
Speaker 2: good time watching Daredevil, but you said it like there
Speaker 2: was a question mark.
Speaker 3: No, it's like I think that's all. I think that's
Speaker 3: all I got. But yes, No, Dared Devil's fun. It's
Speaker 3: it's a it's a good relaunching of the character. The
Speaker 3: same the same, same, same cast, same basically the same story.
Speaker 3: I am amused that Charlie Cox seems to have forgotten
Speaker 3: how to do an American accent.
Speaker 1: That is really funny.
Speaker 3: I don't know why it felt like in the previous
Speaker 3: series he seemed to have a much better American accent.
Speaker 3: But whatever, But I still it's a blast and he's
Speaker 3: great for its great.
Speaker 4: It's fun.
Speaker 2: Hashtag justice for Foggy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know he may but we'll see about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, apparently in the comics he comes back from the dead,
Speaker 3: so you never know, Tony, what do you got?
Speaker 4: I'll see I have been really we want we finish
Speaker 4: up the Residents, a murder mystery in the White House
Speaker 4: on Netflix. I believe it is. So that was really
Speaker 4: cool and I thought of you guys, like, I think
Speaker 4: you're gonna really dig it up. I enjoyed that a lot.
Speaker 4: On the music side more, you know, I've been endorsing
Speaker 4: people I know making cool albums. I think I mentioned
Speaker 4: their single, but my friends in the band frog Mouth
Speaker 4: just released their album and it is super cool. I really,
Speaker 4: I you know, they're it's not just that they're good friends,
Speaker 4: it's you know, good tunes too. Write like, I wouldn't
Speaker 4: endorse them if if I didn't believe in it. Uh
Speaker 4: so there Their album is called Identity Thief, and uh
Speaker 4: they're really cool people, really good. I've known them from
Speaker 4: from bands before this, but I really you can get
Speaker 4: it on band camp, Jason City link, you know, you
Speaker 4: can link to it. But I just like, I like
Speaker 4: promoting cool people who are doing awesome music. Like I think,
Speaker 4: I just even not like creating art and putting stuff
Speaker 4: out there helps I'm not maybe I'm not as naive
Speaker 4: as I think. You know, Oh, music just changes the world,
Speaker 4: but I think in sometimes sometimes it can, or it
Speaker 4: can change your surroundings for the time you're listening to
Speaker 4: that album or those you know, those tunes. It's such
Speaker 4: a big part of my life in general that you know,
Speaker 4: I think that I believe in it, and especially you know,
Speaker 4: putting out new music, just like any art, any you know,
Speaker 4: putting out a novel, putting out a movie. All of
Speaker 4: that's tough. It's tough to keep going. Stuff to do
Speaker 4: you say, yeah, frog Mouth, identity, thief, good tunes, good people.
Speaker 4: And then for games, I'm actually playing this game, sad Land,
Speaker 4: which is based on manga Toriama manga, and it's a
Speaker 4: post apocalyptic to drive cool tanks and bikes and stuff
Speaker 4: like that and in across the Desert monsters. It's classic
Speaker 4: j RPG stuff. But I chose it because I had
Speaker 4: a bunch of games that were kind of darker and
Speaker 4: then I was like, you know what, I got sand
Speaker 4: Land on sale and it's definitely worth super worth it
Speaker 4: on sale. But I've been really that's been my kind
Speaker 4: of salve that night. I haven't watched as many movies
Speaker 4: because I've been, you know, roam across the desert on
Speaker 4: bikes and tanks and that's honestly, you get mechs and
Speaker 4: uh you know, if you liked Dragon Quest and you
Speaker 4: like Dragon ball Z, well same art style and I
Speaker 4: think they did. And oh and you're the Son of
Speaker 4: the Devil, like literally your dad is uper and you
Speaker 4: know the main characters feels above a moody demon team
Speaker 4: in a world of humans in a post apocalyptic post
Speaker 4: apocalyptic desert land, So like, how how cool is that?
Speaker 1: It?
Speaker 4: May I do need to read the manga now, like
Speaker 4: I haven't. I just haven't picked it up. But you know,
Speaker 4: I have a long list of stuff I need to buy.
Speaker 4: So that that's been my That's been a lot of
Speaker 4: my nights when I'm not I'm also catching you know,
Speaker 4: I'm catching Daredevil and and uh Reacher and and all
Speaker 4: of that. But but definitely Uh, those are my my things.
Speaker 4: Like and Jason Jullie, I think when you when you
Speaker 4: catch the Residents, I hope you agree with me because
Speaker 4: I think it's okay, it's it's firmly in the stuff
Speaker 4: we would all talk about, and.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Yeah. Adolescence, by the way, also was
Speaker 1: killer just to throw out Netflix series from last week.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right. Okay, all right, thank you very much, Drew.
Speaker 1: What about you?
Speaker 2: I have two endorsements in both dinosaur related because so
Speaker 2: we're going, yeah, well we're going from one of my
Speaker 2: one of my fixations to another one of them. That's
Speaker 2: just how things work sometimes. So it's kind of a
Speaker 2: repeat endorsement. But it's another Haunted Objects podcast. But it's
Speaker 2: a two part episode they did on the McCaulay Mimbay,
Speaker 2: which is a alleged Brontosaurus type cryptid that lives in
Speaker 2: the African Congo.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: Some people might remember that Disney made a pretty schlocky
Speaker 2: movie about it called Baby in the eighties. But it's
Speaker 2: it's it's a fairly well known bit of of cryptozoology.
Speaker 2: But they they spend two episodes on it. You know,
Speaker 2: they go into some actual science, some pseudoscience. They they
Speaker 2: delve into the weird world war weird, weird, weird world
Speaker 2: of Young Earth creationism and how they have co opted
Speaker 2: this this mythological creature for their own nefarious purposes. And
Speaker 2: it's just an interesting dissection of this particular piece of folklore.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, so I it's it's been my
Speaker 2: favorite episode that they've done so so far.
Speaker 1: But it's a code of the episode.
Speaker 2: It's the Haunted Object podcast, but the episode it's too
Speaker 2: a two parter that's on McCaulay Membe and I'll send
Speaker 2: I'll send a link to the episodes. But man, you know,
Speaker 2: although I do kind of wish that I could have
Speaker 2: this is me being the the that guy, which I'll
Speaker 2: talk more about in a second, that I do kind
Speaker 2: of wish that I could have consulted them on some
Speaker 2: of their dinosaur facts in the episode, because there's they're
Speaker 2: not paleontologists, so and I mean neither are my, but
Speaker 2: you know, I'm an enthusiastic amateur. But there's there's some
Speaker 2: things I wish I could have said. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: actually but uh still really really fun. My second dinosaur
Speaker 2: related endorsement is actually for fourth Sundays at the University
Speaker 2: of Texas Museum of Science and History because they have
Speaker 2: a lot of awesome dinosaur fossil fossils, but also megafauna
Speaker 2: fossils for things like saber toothed cats and mammoths. But
Speaker 2: you know, they have a quits aquatilis, which is you know,
Speaker 2: quite unique. If you want to see how big the
Speaker 2: biggest thing that ever flew was, you can you can
Speaker 2: see that they have a tyrannosaur skull. They have a
Speaker 2: brontosaurus skull. Jamie, my my charming wife who sometimes guests
Speaker 2: guests on the podcast, was the one that thought that
Speaker 2: this would be a great family fun day and she
Speaker 2: was right. I was just giddy and dancing around, and
Speaker 2: you know, my my our baby Luna was like vibing
Speaker 2: off of how giddy I was and was just super
Speaker 2: smiley most of the time. There was only a few
Speaker 2: times where Jamie had the stop stop me from correcting
Speaker 2: the tour guy, which I'm ashamed to say happened more
Speaker 2: than once. But you know, I I am who I am,
Speaker 2: and that's all that I am, which is a massive
Speaker 2: which a massive dork but dinas plainer, Yes, that's it.
Speaker 2: I'm dinas plainer. Where where werewolf guy? Where wolf Guy?
Speaker 2: Dinos plainer? Uh?
Speaker 3: You know, are you a dinas by day and a
Speaker 3: were wolf by night?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I'm gonna. I'm gonna have new business cards
Speaker 2: printed up dos that. But uh man, it's it's free
Speaker 2: every fourth Sunday and for for you know, fun for
Speaker 2: the whole family or fun for the you know, people
Speaker 2: who are childless and simply science enthusiasts of science. So
Speaker 2: you know, I would I would suggest, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're in the Austin area, check and wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. All right, So I watched two
Speaker 1: movies over the weekend. While I was working on stuff,
Speaker 1: was playing movies on the screen. I watched two movies
Speaker 1: that were entirely conversations, and those were My Dinner with
Speaker 1: Andrea and Full Body Massage, which sounds like a sexy movie,
Speaker 1: but it was a Nicholas Rogue movie where it's But
Speaker 1: both of these movies were basically films. They're ninety minutes
Speaker 1: long or two hours long or whatever it is with
Speaker 1: two actors just having a conversation. One of them is
Speaker 1: Brian Brown and Mimi Rodgers, and he's a massaur and
Speaker 1: she's the client and they just spend ninety minutes talking
Speaker 1: about whatever about about men and women in relationships and whatever.
Speaker 1: And then My Dinner with Andrea is two gentlemen who
Speaker 1: are having dinner and just talking about, you know, about
Speaker 1: art and life and stuff. And I was just I
Speaker 1: was just so floored that you could make a movie
Speaker 1: that where where the whole thing is just two people
Speaker 1: talking and we and the audience are sitting and watching it.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: The other one that I wanted to so that was
Speaker 1: My Dinner with Andrea in full body Massage. You should
Speaker 1: watch those back to back. That was really really fun.
Speaker 1: And also Tony's wife, who is a writer named Rain Knox,
Speaker 1: she did this hilarious comedy musical a few years ago,
Speaker 1: well maybe it was, maybe it's more recent than that,
Speaker 1: And all I remember it was about the Office.
Speaker 4: It started, It started during the pandemic and just took
Speaker 4: longer to make it pass correctly.
Speaker 1: So I would love to get a new link to
Speaker 1: it because one of the songs is called Robert California
Speaker 1: is the Worst, and it's about the character from the
Speaker 1: Office and how he's the worst. It was great. I
Speaker 1: love it so much. Yeah, and he was played by
Speaker 1: James Spider, which is how I all this stuff back together.
Speaker 1: So so look for that. And Tony, you had something
Speaker 1: else that you wanted to bring up.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well hey I remember specifically, Like, it's funny
Speaker 4: you mentioned my dinner with Andre that's always as a
Speaker 4: kid watching Ciscal and Ebert, Yes, Like, I couldn't fathom
Speaker 4: how you could possibly want to watch something like that
Speaker 4: because I was a kid, and there's monster movies and
Speaker 4: there's there like everything like that looks like the worst,
Speaker 4: most boring thing ever to it. Yeah, someone who's young, right, Like,
Speaker 4: how how could that be fascinating? The answer is because
Speaker 4: you're not an adult and you probably, like I'm sure
Speaker 4: there are some kids maybe that age you were, you know,
Speaker 4: just would get it, but in general, like it just
Speaker 4: seemed like the antithesis of any movie. To see them
Speaker 4: gush over it was like, ah, that sounds like the worst,
Speaker 4: which is funny, but my actual one I forgot.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: I got a press release that reminded me that The
Speaker 4: Rule of Ginny Penn, starring John Lethgow and Jeffrey Rush
Speaker 4: is coming to Shudder on Friday, and I saw it
Speaker 4: a fantastic fest I think I talked a little about it,
Speaker 4: but oh man, there's so much just anxiety. It scared
Speaker 4: me because the guy's just oh there's just some evil.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's so harrowing, but also being older, the
Speaker 4: idea of being forced into a senior home and there's
Speaker 4: a horror there that they play on as well as
Speaker 4: this megalo maniac like thing that's happening. It is a
Speaker 4: harrowing movie. But I do like if that sounds like
Speaker 4: and oh they're sore. Everybody in that is so good.
Speaker 4: But it is fascinating, horrific, depressing and awesome. I don't
Speaker 4: know again, I don't know if it's for everybody, but
Speaker 4: like it was, it's one of the movies that's stuck
Speaker 4: with me at Fantastic Fest and I always you know,
Speaker 4: when that happens, you know, long after the fest, I
Speaker 4: want to, you know, reach out. But but it's it
Speaker 4: was in theaters and then March twenty eight, it's coming
Speaker 4: to shutter. So if you want to watch John Letgal
Speaker 4: terrorize people by speaking through a puppet, there you go.
Speaker 4: It's it's something.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, if John let goes on Smart List this
Speaker 3: week or last week of you a bit whatever, the
Speaker 3: originally and.
Speaker 1: You said his personality kind of surprised.
Speaker 3: You, right, Well, so that in surprised me. It's just
Speaker 3: too so sweet, such a nice guy. I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, I love John.
Speaker 4: Well he's playing against that here. Yeah, it's oh, it's
Speaker 4: like I said, it's terrifying but affecting. And so I think,
Speaker 4: you know, a decent amount of our listeners probably want
Speaker 4: to check that out. It's good, but boy did it
Speaker 4: make me think about all the A lot of things
Speaker 4: I probably didn't want to think about, in addition to going,
Speaker 4: oh man, that's that's a horrific thing that's happening.
Speaker 1: On that note, and thank you very much. That was
Speaker 1: that was cool. Wow. So we got to discuss Wolf
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, kind of bringing to an end this
Speaker 1: time around so journeying through the world of werewolves. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that we will be back, but what a what
Speaker 1: a fun episode. And thank you everybody for your patience
Speaker 1: and for your kindness to one another. And sometimes these
Speaker 1: trying times come to the Facebook page. Let us know
Speaker 1: what you're thinking. We'll probably take a week off. We
Speaker 1: may be back right after that. We might take a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks off depending on some travel, but we
Speaker 1: will be back. So let us know what you're thinking
Speaker 1: of something, if there's something that you want to hear.
Speaker 1: So everybody be kind to one another and we will
Speaker 1: talk to you soon. Not all